If You’re In Ministry #2: Missing You

“If, all of a sudden, your student ministry vanished, would they be missed?

If, all of a sudden, your church vanished, would it be missed?

If your church were to close its doors today, would the surrounding community even notice?”

Those are huge questions.

What it equates to is this: is your church or ministry so plugged into ‘something bigger than themselves’ that, if it were all of a sudden gone, people would notice?

In ministry, we should be about others, but oftentimes, ministries aren’t. And so a ministry becomes “Me-centered,” catering to the whims of those inside its walls instead of meeting the grim yet real needs of those trapped outside the walls.

I remember talking to Mike a few times about that thought. In fact, I remember him challenging my wife and I a few years ago, moments after a big event finished, holed up in a janitor’s closet.

And that question has stuck with me ever since.

And every time I get tempted to ask, “Who really does that,” I remember the church he ministers to — Ekklesia Hattiesburg.

Ekklesia Hattiesburg agreed to meet the needs of a community in Hattiesburg, MS by partnering with a school in that community. Here’s how it works: members of that community post their needs on a bulletin board at the school (or on the web, if they have web access). The needs range from tutoring to giving rides to the store to mowing lawns or fixing bikes. Then, members of Ekklesia log onto a secure site, find a need that they can meet with their giftings and/or resources, and they connect to make it happen.

“But how do the members of the community know where to place their needs?”

Easy. Ekklesia often does block parties and barbecues and fun days — for the community.

That’s a church who has really taken those above questions seriously.

And we should too.

If you were to vanish today, would you be missed?

Live.
Live to be missed.
Do something worth being missed.

Your community needs you to invest in them.

Question: what are you currently doing for your community? What are some ideas on what you could be doing?